Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Frank Quitely
Color/Digital Inking by Jamie Grant
Lettered by Todd Klein
WE3 created by Morrison and Quitely
Published by Vertigo/DC Comics as WE3 #1-3 in 2004 and 2005. Later published in an expanded collected version in 2011.
. . .
"Is coat not we."
. . .
Review by William D. Tucker.
You have a pet. Could be a dog, a cat, a rabbit, a rat, a bird. You give it a name. You call it by that name. Your pet responds when you speak the name you've given it. Or maybe your pet is just responding to human made noise coupled with your body language directed at it, but it has no conception of having a name. Or maybe your pet offers no response at all. Maybe you have to pick it up to move it where you want it to be. Perhaps you have a pet which can be housebroken so it doesn't shit and piss all over your home. Maybe your pet needs to be caged or crated. Your pet might be able to roam free within the bounds of your house or enclosed yard or your apartment-or maybe you've sprung for one of those invisible fences. Maybe your pet seems to greet you when you come home after being away for awhile. Your pet could be happy to see you, your pet may even have missed you while you were away, or it just knows that you're the one who controls the food and water. Maybe you like to stroke your pet and have it cuddle in your lap or perch on your shoulder or even upon the crown of your head. Maybe your pet likes to curl up by your feet when you're lying in bed. It's possible that your pet is a draw, a social lubricant, that encourages people to spend time with you. It's possible that you see your pet as a means to get people to see you as attractive, as caring, as a responsible person, to date you, to have sex with you-or, alternatively, you don't want your pet to be so friendly with other people. Maybe you enjoy injuring, beating, torturing, and/or mutilating your pet. Maybe that's just the kinda person you are. You might even want your pet to be aggressive towards other pets-for fun, for profit, because you like having control over other living things that can't resist you, that can't fight back, or you just like the sight of blood and mayhem. Maybe, just maybe . . . what you truly want . . . what you most fervently desire . . . is for your pet-or pets-to kill other people. You could want that above all things.
—
In the comic book WE3 the American military transforms cats, dogs, rabbits, and rats into cyborg warriors that can be piloted with what looks like a wireless X-Box controller. These animals have been surgically wired into armored bionic bodies that give them enhanced speed, resistance to bullets, along with explosive pellets, missiles, focused beam weapons, and high velocity projectile blades. And they can talk.
This technological transformation involves complex neurosurgery along with constant administration of an array of anti-rejection and psychiatric medications via body-sited pumps and reservoirs. The logic is that in a world where war is a necessity if you replace human soldiers with animal cyborgs then humans no longer have to die fighting necessay wars. American humans, to begin with, but presumably the animal cyborg technology will spread across the globe just like nuclear weapons, the AK-47, and cyber-warfare viruses, but, in the fullness of time, all warlike nations will be fielding animal 'borgs, and humans will just be at-a-distance wargamers, support/maintainence/troubleshooting personnel, logistics-
-not bad, right?
I mean, if we accept that war is a necessity.
Not to mention you're using sophisticated mammal brains as a basis for controllable but also autonomous intelligence when necessary. How many times have we been burned by the overblown promises of A.I., right? Those drones people get up in arms about? Those things are piloted, okay, by some flightsim jockeys in air-conditioned trailers. None of that shit is Skynet. Not even close. Moreover, the drone operators still suffer from PTSD every time they obliterate a civilian cab driver or a giant wedding party or a school full of children and teachers. The operators see the instant of slaughter up close and personal in super hi-def. That's traumatic to human brains. The traumatized soldiers tell their stories to journalists. Journalists inform the public. The public is appalled. Popular support for default militarism craters. Recruitment numbers sink. Defense budgets must increase. That's what they do in the American system. Defense budgets go up despite lack of popular support for whatever Forever Wars we got goin' on at the moment. Popularity or lack of same is not the determining factor. Desire to project strength to rest of world is what matters. But you need dependable personnel to fight wars. And remember: war is a necessity.
So, you know, animal cyborg soldiers. They don't experience trauma when they kill. So far as we know. You've seen how cats "play" with mice or squirrels or cockroaches-they're not even hungry! We romanticize canines, but they have aggression, too, and especially when they're socialized-or de-socialized, if you like-to fight on behalf of humans. Think hunting dogs. Think guard dogs. Think dog fighting rings. Dogs have seemingly co-evolved alongside us homo sapiens, so what living being could be a more loyal military asset?
Imagine being attacked by a large cyborg dog, one that's tearing out your throat. Imagine a cyborg cat leaping onto your face, clawing out your eyes. Think how demoralizing, how terrifying that would be to all-too-human enemy troops.
Rat brains are simple, easy to wire-up, and you can quickly breed up whole messes of 'em. They can be filled with incendiary and/or explosive substances and directed en masse to destabilize/destroy enemy personnel, infrastructure, etc.
Rabbits breed real easy, too, and they're deft at creating underground complexes of tunnels. The reconnaisance applications are killer. Plus they, too, can be wired up for boom-boom action if you're in need.
So, you know, the idea of cyborg animal warrirors although seemingly crazy and/or cruel is definitely not insane. It's not detached from reality. In fact, maybe it makes too much sense.
This overabundance of sense-making is what drives WE3.
We see the animal cyborg warrior program laid out in all its particulars. We meet the military leadership. We meet the politician who has backed the project with hopes that this new way of war will rocket them from the Senate to the White House. We meet the scientists who work their Frankenstein magic on rats, cats, dogs, and rabbits. We even get to see field logistics personnel who make the cyborg animal soldier deployments run as smoothly as possible.
And we meet the three: a dog, a cat, a rabbit. The dog's fierce and loyal. The cat is basically a ruthless murder machine-in a Vietnam War movie, the cat would be the soldier crafting necklaces out of human ears. And the rabbit is skittish, unpredictable, and quite dangerous, as it deploys bomb pellets all over the field from its robo-rectum. Each animal is surgically merged with a quadrupedal suit of armor that makes them hard to kill, increases their speed, and features gauntlets with carballoy scalpel claws and high velocity razor launchers. They can also be equpped with machine guns, rockets, death rays-all the toys. This bestial trio is not to be fucked with, for they will slice you into shredded bits of intestine, and smash you into shattered bone fragments. You know what a dog does to a chew toy, right? You're the chew toy.
WE3 is economical. It was just three issues in its original serialization. The expanded trade paperback edition is about 110 pages. Dialogue is stripped to the minimum. The pages feature dynamic panels within panels during battle scenes to give you both extreme close-ups of gruesome violence and the wider perspective on the field of combat all-in-one. You can read through it quickly, or savor the details. There's no sequel or prequel or sidequel as far as I'm aware. The creators said everything they needed to say, I assume. Nor do I disagree, if this is the case. Plenty of comic books go on and on to diminishing returns. Amusingly, WE3 avoids mission creep.
WE3 is about ways of seeing. How do humans see the world? How do animals view things? What do humans see when we look at animals? Do animals see us the way we see ourselves? What about complex surveillance systems? What perspectives do we gain or lose or ignore or privilege when we implement pervasive audio/visual/biometric tracking? What do you see when you accept war as a necessity?
WE3 is about speech. If we technologically modified dogs and cats and rabbits to be able to talk . . . what would they say? How would they say it? Would we accept this? The military and political leadership in WE3 seem freaked-the-fuck-out to hear a dog talking. Is that just the shock of the new? Is that something they'll get used to with time?
WE3 wants to know if cats and dogs and rabbits want to be surgically wired into ferocious cyborg bodies. Without giving it away, I felt WE3 gives a definitive answer . . . but then I thought, That's a definitive answer for these specific animal characters . . .
—
WE3 is surprisingly convincing, considering its far-out Frankenscience premises. Or maybe I'm just an easy mark. Yeah, I'll talk to a dog or a cat. Sure, I convince myself they understand-that we understand each other. And, yes, the idea of bionic pet warriors strikes me as clever. If I were a political-military shotcaller, I'd probably even look into it. I suppose, at some level, I've even accepted the necessity of war.
And all I did was read a talking animal comic!
